It is Thursday the 18th of December 2025, and you are listening to Skeptics with a K,

the podcast for science, reason and critical thinking.

Skeptics with a K is produced by skeptic media in association with the Merseyside Skeptic

Society, a non-profit organization for the promotion of by skeptic media in association with the Merseyside Skeptic Society,

a non-profit organisation for the promotion of scientific skepticism on Merseyside, around the UK,

and internationally. I'm your host. My call with me today is Marsh. Hello. And Alice.

Hello. I still was surprised when you said December then, even though December feels like it's

been going on forever. In a long December. And yes, it still caught me off guard that we'd got as far as December in the... Well, this is our Christmas show. This is our last episode before Christmas. It is our last show before Christmas. And the candle's just gone out. I lit a candle to make it all festive in here. You lit an already dead tea light?

Well, it wasn't dead when I lit it, because it lit fine. And it looked like it had quite a lot in,

but I think that was just the illusion of previous wax having melted back down again.

But you're only ever burning wax juice. You're not burning real wax, are you? Like, candles don't

burn wax. They burn wax gas. Wax juice, apparently. When wax heats up, it lets off a gas. Yeah. And that's what burns. It's still wax, though. Wax itself isn't flammable. Is that not just the gaseous form of wax? Ramesly, wax cannot be created or destroyed. Wax is inflammable.

If you held a flame on wax, wax wouldn't go up like it was petrol.

I do know how candles were.

Well, you seem surprised when I said that.

Because it's surprising that you're, like, that you're mansplaining candles to me.

I was mansplaining it to Mike.

That's just explaining it.

Anyway, I think what had happened was the liquid wax had just cooled and made it look like it was a fuller candle than it was.

The other candle's still on, unless you've got a problem with that one, Alice.

So I'm sure it's not going to be a surprise to any of our listeners, but none of us are Christians. No, no. None of us are. We all used to be, didn't we? Well, I don't know. Depending on how you define used to be. Yeah. Like, I went to a church school. Did you? You were Catholic. I went to church quite regularly. I went to church every week up until Gladiators was on BBC.

So in my church school, I went, we went every... Those were related, by the heavens.

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